Years 3 to 6 Enjoy Residential Week

Girls in Years 3 to 6 were spread around the country and Europe during the first week of June when they attended their end of year residential trips. They all had a fantastic time learning new skills and overcoming personal challenges. Below you can read about each trip and see the pictures in our gallery.

Year 3 and 4s  Summer camp with The Exploration Society

The Year 3s and 4s spent an exciting four days exploring in the Surrey Hills. The pupils were staying in a secluded youth hostel surrounded by woodlands and the heath. Each day the pupils took it in turns to help prepare meals for the whole group eating their meals outside as much as the weather allowed. On the first evening they warmed up for the week with a night hike to Holmbury Hill to see its Iron Age fort.  This prepared them for the rest of the week’s activities – saving wild and exotic animals (cuddly toys) using their newly acquired orienteering skills, scaling trees on the high ropes course, archery and learning bushcraft skills. They even climbed Leith Hill (294m), the highest point in Southern England in record time!

Year 5s trip to PGL East Sussex

Year 5 went to PGL holidays in East Sussex. Below you can read a couple of the girls’ diary entries which they wrote whilst on the trip.

‘Dear Diary,

Today was an amazing day! Everyone was excitedly talking about the activities for the day. Whilst we waited for the instructor, we saw some baby rabbits in the distance. There were two; a mother and a baby and both had big fluffy tails and brown fur.

As the instructor finally arrived, she announced we would be doing the trapeze, tunnel trail, rifle shooting and zip wire. The first activity was tunnel trail. As we walked to the tunnels, we could see another school on the  zip wire; it looked so much fun as the girl that was on it, screamed with delight!!

When we arrived at the tunnels, another instructor greeted us and explained that we could explore the underground tunnels and have some fun. After I had gone through the tunnels a few times, I knew them like the back of my hand. Someone suggested we play sardines so I hid then counted. Nobody could find anyone as it was pitch black!

At the end of the day, we arrived back at our dorms and everybody was so exhausted from all the activities that we all fell asleep straight away!’

Zosia, (5L)

‘Dear Diary,

This morning, I woke to find my four friends asleep in our small cabin, whilst bags were squashed under beds or dotted around our room. It was still quite early so I pulled out my fascinating book and dived into a mysterious world of riddles and clues.

After breakfast we moved on to our first activity of the day; problem solving. Problem solving for me was the most amazing activity because the challenges were hard to solve, which put my mind at work. For one of the challenges we had to figure out how to cross a lake which we did but we got pretty dirty whilst doing so. One of the hardest challenges was when we had to balance on a bridge and keep a tyre in the air for as long as possible. This resorted in us using a ‘leaning’ method, which worked sometimes, but at other times gave us a crash landing!

Straight after the best activity…was the SCARIEST-The Giant Swing! Haiyin and I were both really scared of it, but as soon as I pulled the rope, I felt a rush of excitement which filled my whole body and then most of the fear was forgotten.

I had an awesome day overcoming my fears and challenging my brain, my two favourite things.

If you challenge yourself, you don’t miss out on fun experiences, which is what I feel like I did at PGL’.

Milly (5K)

Year 6 Residential to France

Last week, Year 6 traveled all the way to France on our exciting residential trip! On the way to the Château de Warsy we stopped at a snail farm, and learnt all about the snails that were bred there. We were lucky to get to try some of the farm’s specialties: snail and garlic in a snail cracker; little helpings of pork and snail pate; sweet rhubarb and raspberry jam and some lovely orange zest biscuits. We were greeted by nice staff as we arrived at the Château and had lovely dinner before settling down for a good night’s sleep.

On Tuesday, we explored a nearby town called Montdidier and learnt about all the stories about the town it was very fun and we learnt some new facts. In the afternoon we went to a chocolate factory where we learnt how they made the chocolate and mold it. There was a massive chocolate Eiffel tower! That was one of the tastiest days ever!

On the third day of our trip we went to the town called Amiens. There we went to a local market where we wandered around the stalls. After we went to a massive cathedral which was immense and very awe inspiring. Most of us lit candles so there was a lovely row of shimmering light where the Falcons had been. The art and decor of the cathedral was stunning! In the afternoon we went to a goat farm, we got to feed the goats, milk a goat (its milk was so warm) and taste and saw how the farmer made the milk! It was so exciting and we even got to hold a three day old goat!

Parc Asterix!!! On Thursday we were at Parc Asterix, a massive theme park and about the Asterix books!! We split into groups on what kind of rides we went to so we all had fun, the

water rides were crazy and in the log flume everyone got soaked. The scariest group got to go on a roller-coaster with seven loop-the -loops and another group rode one that went backwards!

Parc Asterix was so fun and at the end we went to see a play  where Asterix with his gang fought the Romans obviously Asterix won thanks to his dog! Best theme park ever!

It was the last day and we were all packed and ready to go back to England but on the way back we stopped at a bakery and got to see how to make bread and learnt the difference between handmade and machine made. We also got taught how to make croissants!

Josie (Year 6)